Iused to steal copies of NME,” Alice Glass suddenly confesses with a laugh before swiftly adding, “They were like… $13!”, blaming the exchange rate – and high import prices – for her petty thievery of a certain British music magazine. Growing up in Toronto – first in a small Catholic community in the suburbs, later in the city – she was “the kid who was always getting into trouble,” she says. “‘Keep your kid away from that kid’ is how I was known.” The reputation, she adds, was entirely justified.
Her parents often worked late in the city and Glass – born Margaret Osborn – would spend a lot of time either alone, or “trying to form punk bands” with anybody who had a drum kit in their house, mostly playing “four-chord punk” and covering songs by The Stooges.
By 2012, she’d appeared on NME’s cover twice in her former band Crystal Castles, having topped our publication’s ‘Cool List’ in 2008, the same year that the duo’s self-titled debut album shook up the indie scene with its jarring, dissonant electro-dance. A UK NME Tour alongside Magnetic Man, Everything Everything and The Vaccines, meanwhile, marked Glass’ “first professional tour” and a “big part of my career”. Perhaps confirming that she belonged there in the first place, 18-year-old Glass responded to her Cool List victory by questioning what it means to be crowned as a symbol of trend-setting: “I’m flattered, thank you,” she told us that year, “but back in school the people who held themselves in the same regard were also the biggest waste of skin I’ve ever met.”
NME Cover 2022 Alice Glass
Alice Glass on the cover of NME
In 2014, Alice Glass left Crystal Castles shortly after the release of their third album ‘III’ – three years later, she bravely issued a statement alleging the abuse and manipulation she had endured throughout her time with bandmate Ethan Kath, who has consistently denied the allegations.
“Leaving Crystal Castles was the single most difficult decision I’ve ever made — that band was everything to me,” she wrote. “My music, my performances and my fans were all I had in the world. I gave that up and started over not because I wanted to but because I had to. As difficult as it was, I knew that leaving was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It has taken me years to recover from enduring almost a decade of abuse, manipulation and psychological control. I am still recovering.” Kath responded with his own statement: “I am outraged and hurt by the recent statements made by Alice about me and our prior relationship. Her story is pure fiction.”
On her first solo release, 2015’s stuttering outburst of ‘Stillbirth’, she sang of being trapped in a cycle of abuse, her sugary-sounding vocals underpinned by harsh, jagged sawtooth. “Now I know this,” she sang, digging up a glimmer of hope: “you don’t own me anymore”. Across 2018’s static-laden ‘CEASE AND DESIST’ and the cavernous ‘Mine’, Glass established herself as a brutally honest artist, conjuring up an uneasy sense of haunting in her strange, unwieldy pop songs.
Fast-forward to the present, and 33-year-old Glass is gearing up to release ‘PREY//IV’ – her first solo record. The title isn’t just a pun; its Roman numerals are a deliberate allusion to the numbering scheme her former band used on 2010’s ‘Crystal Castles II’ and 2012’s aforementioned ‘III’. “This is my fourth full release,” she says. “Look at the writing credits throughout the years, and I am the most consistent songwriter on the CC records. I feel confident saying that and if I intentionally piss anyone off, then good,” she adds. “If someone’s mad with that, I don’t fuck with them anyways, but just eat it.”
NME Cover 2022 Alice Glass
Credit: Kristen Jan Wong
After moving to LA a decade ago, Glass has found a community of like-minded creatives, falling in with the flourishing hyper-pop scene through DJing at the multi-venue monthly party HEAV3N. Frequented by the likes of Charli XCX, A.G Cook, Kim Petras, Dorian Electra and the late pop pioneer SOPHIE, the queer LA rave “started as a kind of safe space,” Glass says. “Girls and gays raving together. With me being out of the band, DJing is a good way to just make money, to be honest, and I liked being in that community. At first I was DJing a lot of industrial stuff that nobody liked,” she laughs. “So I’m trying to find cuter vocals to mix in with darker tones. Being around really creative and talented people who are nice was really life-changing.”
When lockdowns closed HEAV3N’s pearly gates – in a physical sense, at least – Glass began DJing at online nights like Club Quarantine alongside A.G. Cook and producer EasyFun, and joined the bill for a tribute party for SOPHIE following the producer’s death last year. Glass knew SOPHIE through friends, and the artist – one of the pioneering influences in the shape of contemporary pop – was occasionally a sounding board for ‘PREY//IV’, offering advice on pre-release single ‘Fair Game’, a mangled slab of rave.
“SOPHIE was one of those people who was talented at everything,” Glass says. “I’m pretty sure she could play any instrument; pretty intimidating as an artist, but really inspirational. We’d hang out and I would always get so nervous to play tracks from my record to her, but she told me she wanted to do a remix for ‘Fair Game’ and actually convinced me to put that single out. I appreciated it.”
Last year the musician also linked up with various hyper-pop players for a handful of collaborations. First came ‘LEGEND’, her track with rising scene star Alice Longyu Gao. A demonic pop song laden with emergency sirens and quick quips about fresh manicures and frozen waffles, it’s both ferocious and ridiculously good fun. “Fuck you,” they rage in unison, “did you really think all us girls are replaceable?” You can’t help but notice the parallels with the current Crystal Castles line-up; following Glass’ departure, he quietly replaced her with vocalist Edith Frances and continued releasing music as if little had changed. Later that year, meanwhile, came Glass’ menacing remix of Dorian Electra’s song ‘Iron Fist’, which also features The Horrors’ Faris Badwan.
“This is my fourth full release. I am the most consistent songwriter on the Crystal Castles records”
After years of being reduced to an aesthetic, as she describes it – “the idea [with Crystal Castles] was to just be an aesthetic,” she says, “and not really talk about real issues” – it feels like we’re getting to know Alice Glass’ true artistic self through her solo work. For the video accompanying previous single ‘Mine’, for instance, she enlisted Ru Paul’s Drag Race victor Violet Chachki, reflecting her deep admiration of drag. Together, the pair serenely sip on blood from dainty tea-cups, before the camera pans to Glass’ own open-casket funeral.
“In Toronto they have a really fun drag community and it’s another form of art that takes clichés of feminine performers over the years and throws it back in society’s faces,” Glass explains. “Some of the most talented people I’ve ever met in my whole life are drag queens.”
If she were to hypothetically end up on show’s notorious ‘Snatch Game’ challenge – in which queens impersonate iconic figures – Glass would pick her favourite Hollywood icon. “I wanna do Judy Garland’s lost tapes,” she says, referencing a series of recently unearthed new recordings of the star, “where she’s recording herself drunk. You can totally feel her pain. Hollywood used her up. I’m a secret Judy Garland fan. I’ll have to do a really weird era of Judy Garland, dressed up as a clown and so sad. If I can pull that off I’ll impress myself.”
